Rogue Trooper
Added September 22nd, 2006 by Dakota Grabowski
Introduction:
I was unaware at the time of reviewing, but Rogue Trooper is based off the popular UK comic with the matching name. Comic book heroes turned electronic game characters have not had a great track record. Titles such as Spawn and the Dreamcast game JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure have all made gamers think twice before purchasing comic book games. Not even the X-Men franchise is safe from horrendous video game adaptations. Certainly, this is not the case with Rogue Trooper due to Developers Rebellion and Eidos teaming up to give justice to the popular UK comic.
Considering the attention span of most gamers today, traditional first/third person shooters can tend to become repetitive and boring rather quickly; with lame and predictable story lines, reoccurring landscapes, and an array of pointless weaponry. Rogue Trooper offers fans a different outlook on what can be done with shooters nowadays.
Gameplay:
If players jump right into the game and circumvent researching the game’s encyclopedia feature, they may become confused with the main storyline. So here’s what you need to know about the plot outline: Rogue Trooper is about an advanced futuristic war between two groups - the Southers and the Norts. At the turn of the war, the Southers discover a technological breakthrough in Genetic Science and develop a whole army of soldiers with superhuman strength and toxic resistance that protects them from the uninhabitable environment of Nu Earth. The Genetic infantry is betrayed though and their invasion was tipped off to the Norts, nearly wiping out the whole army – how exciting!
The interesting part about the clone army was the biochips in the back of their necks that power the individual soldier’s personalities. The soldier the player controls is ironically named Rogue. The brothers in your band, Gunmar, Helm, and Bagman, unfortunately are killed one by one. Looking on the bright side, Rogue can salvage their biochips and insert them into appropriate sockets in your battle gear; Helm occupies your helmet, Gunmar in your gun, and Bagman in your robotic backpack. Cheesy, maybe, but definitely entertaining - having them along for the ride, commenting every so often with tid-bits of information.
The style of game play sets Rogue Trooper apart from other action shooters. The player can choose stealth as a tactic and sneak behind the enemy to score a “kill move” or zoom in with a sniper rifle for a headshot (with the option of a silencer). You can also choose to storm through, blasting your enemies with your machine gun, shotgun, pistol, or an assortment of different kinds of grenades. The terrain and environment of Nu Earth offers cover to hide or duck behind, providing the player safety and time to assess his strategy or simply blind fire at the enemy.
Your biochip buds don’t just talk the talk; they can also walk the walk too. Gunmar allows Rogue to place his gun on the ground and activate him as a sentry gun. Helm can be attached to any computer or security device to hack into it and also project his hologram self to distract enemy Norts. Bagman resides in your backpack and will create ammo, med packs, and upgrade your arsenal. Many times I found myself restarting a level or returning to a checkpoint to see if I could handle a certain encounter with a different approach. I’d try and situate traps to set and or create diversions to allow myself to get in close for a “kill move.”
Graphics:
After the release of the first Next-Gen consoles, it’s hard to be thrilled with graphics from an original Xbox game. Setting all expectations aside, Rogue Trooper does an incredible job with textures and lighting that make the game feel smooth and graceful. Tossing a grenade into a pack of approaching Norts and watching their rag doll bodies fly from the explosion is always entertaining. Or maybe you want to puncture a hole in a Nort’s air tank and watch him run around irrationally before the tank ignites, propelling the enemy through the air. You can always be a nit picker and find little things that Rogue Trooper lacks as far as graphics look, but none of these aspects avert from the game play.
Audio:
To tie in with the impressive display of graphics is Rogue Trooper’s excellent job of sound effects. The explosions of your tossed grenades or an enemy’s oxygen tank sync well with the animations. The player can almost feel the machine gun shake as you let loose its full auto capabilities at an approaching Nort patrol. All this is trivial though when compared to the simple aspect of your talking companions inside your battle gear. The game is based off a comic book and the lines are less than masterpieces, but their ability to simply change the mood of a scene with little comments is amazing.
Controls:
First off, the controls are relatively similar to most first/third person shooters. Having said that, all you Halo geeks should be able to jump right into the flow of the game rather quickly, that is if you ever leave your room/dorm to purchase Rogue Trooper (I know, thank God for delivery). It has all your basic functions bound to a single button or trigger while the advanced features such as hologram, silencer, and turret can be accessed through a menu toggle.
The only bulky part about the control system is selecting and throwing your grenades. Toggling through 4 different types of grenades can be slow and cumbersome at times, but once you find the type you fancy, it should be no problem after that. Now, throwing the grenades are a little different than some games. You can either tap the grenade button to throw it mid-range, or you can hold it down to access your grenade targeting system. The mines work in a similar fashion to the grenades, except when you tap the button, Rogue simply drops a single mine behind himself. At first I was excited about the grenade targeting system, but that quickly faded as I ran into a number of problems. First, the grenade target system should only be used when you're safe behind cover, as it is not smart or practical exposing yourself while you take the time to place your grenade. Secondly, the grenade targeting system can't seem to angle high enough to get over the cover or wall that you're safely hiding behind. While Rogue is able to throw a grenade thirty yards, he can't seem to toss one over a rock while he's crouching. Come on, for the love of video games, allow us to throw grenades over low obstacles!
Replay:
Rogue Trooper offers players the ability to play alongside a friend in cooperative missions. The missions are entertaining, but only for about 30 minutes at which point you’ve played them all. There are only about 4 different maps to choose from, all pretty small in size. There are two different styles of missions: the first are the point A-to-point-B missions where you progress through the level to reach to the objective point; the second are called stronghold missions, where you are dropped off by an injured friendly and need to fight off any resistance until the times expires. The latter mode I talked about is more challenging and, of course, always different depending on what time limit you configure it for. In terms of story completion, Rogue Trooper is your basic 10 hour action game with not much depth to replay the missions.
Summary:
Rogue Trooper is a very promising buy that is sure to give action/shooter fans the amusement they pay for. While the game isn’t ground breaking with any new technologies, the flexibility of the game play will keep you interested. The cut scenes aren’t bad either, almost makes you feel tied to the story somehow, always wanting to get to the bottom of the betrayal. Although the multiplayer was a bit disappointing, the overall enjoyment was fairly positive. I was pessimistic due to the fact I had moved on to playing the Xbox 360 – thank you Eidos for giving me a reason to still play my Xbox.
I was unaware at the time of reviewing, but Rogue Trooper is based off the popular UK comic with the matching name. Comic book heroes turned electronic game characters have not had a great track record. Titles such as Spawn and the Dreamcast game JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure have all made gamers think twice before purchasing comic book games. Not even the X-Men franchise is safe from horrendous video game adaptations. Certainly, this is not the case with Rogue Trooper due to Developers Rebellion and Eidos teaming up to give justice to the popular UK comic.
Considering the attention span of most gamers today, traditional first/third person shooters can tend to become repetitive and boring rather quickly; with lame and predictable story lines, reoccurring landscapes, and an array of pointless weaponry. Rogue Trooper offers fans a different outlook on what can be done with shooters nowadays.
Gameplay:
If players jump right into the game and circumvent researching the game’s encyclopedia feature, they may become confused with the main storyline. So here’s what you need to know about the plot outline: Rogue Trooper is about an advanced futuristic war between two groups - the Southers and the Norts. At the turn of the war, the Southers discover a technological breakthrough in Genetic Science and develop a whole army of soldiers with superhuman strength and toxic resistance that protects them from the uninhabitable environment of Nu Earth. The Genetic infantry is betrayed though and their invasion was tipped off to the Norts, nearly wiping out the whole army – how exciting!
The interesting part about the clone army was the biochips in the back of their necks that power the individual soldier’s personalities. The soldier the player controls is ironically named Rogue. The brothers in your band, Gunmar, Helm, and Bagman, unfortunately are killed one by one. Looking on the bright side, Rogue can salvage their biochips and insert them into appropriate sockets in your battle gear; Helm occupies your helmet, Gunmar in your gun, and Bagman in your robotic backpack. Cheesy, maybe, but definitely entertaining - having them along for the ride, commenting every so often with tid-bits of information.
The style of game play sets Rogue Trooper apart from other action shooters. The player can choose stealth as a tactic and sneak behind the enemy to score a “kill move” or zoom in with a sniper rifle for a headshot (with the option of a silencer). You can also choose to storm through, blasting your enemies with your machine gun, shotgun, pistol, or an assortment of different kinds of grenades. The terrain and environment of Nu Earth offers cover to hide or duck behind, providing the player safety and time to assess his strategy or simply blind fire at the enemy.
Your biochip buds don’t just talk the talk; they can also walk the walk too. Gunmar allows Rogue to place his gun on the ground and activate him as a sentry gun. Helm can be attached to any computer or security device to hack into it and also project his hologram self to distract enemy Norts. Bagman resides in your backpack and will create ammo, med packs, and upgrade your arsenal. Many times I found myself restarting a level or returning to a checkpoint to see if I could handle a certain encounter with a different approach. I’d try and situate traps to set and or create diversions to allow myself to get in close for a “kill move.”
Graphics:
After the release of the first Next-Gen consoles, it’s hard to be thrilled with graphics from an original Xbox game. Setting all expectations aside, Rogue Trooper does an incredible job with textures and lighting that make the game feel smooth and graceful. Tossing a grenade into a pack of approaching Norts and watching their rag doll bodies fly from the explosion is always entertaining. Or maybe you want to puncture a hole in a Nort’s air tank and watch him run around irrationally before the tank ignites, propelling the enemy through the air. You can always be a nit picker and find little things that Rogue Trooper lacks as far as graphics look, but none of these aspects avert from the game play.
Audio:
To tie in with the impressive display of graphics is Rogue Trooper’s excellent job of sound effects. The explosions of your tossed grenades or an enemy’s oxygen tank sync well with the animations. The player can almost feel the machine gun shake as you let loose its full auto capabilities at an approaching Nort patrol. All this is trivial though when compared to the simple aspect of your talking companions inside your battle gear. The game is based off a comic book and the lines are less than masterpieces, but their ability to simply change the mood of a scene with little comments is amazing.
Controls:
First off, the controls are relatively similar to most first/third person shooters. Having said that, all you Halo geeks should be able to jump right into the flow of the game rather quickly, that is if you ever leave your room/dorm to purchase Rogue Trooper (I know, thank God for delivery). It has all your basic functions bound to a single button or trigger while the advanced features such as hologram, silencer, and turret can be accessed through a menu toggle.
The only bulky part about the control system is selecting and throwing your grenades. Toggling through 4 different types of grenades can be slow and cumbersome at times, but once you find the type you fancy, it should be no problem after that. Now, throwing the grenades are a little different than some games. You can either tap the grenade button to throw it mid-range, or you can hold it down to access your grenade targeting system. The mines work in a similar fashion to the grenades, except when you tap the button, Rogue simply drops a single mine behind himself. At first I was excited about the grenade targeting system, but that quickly faded as I ran into a number of problems. First, the grenade target system should only be used when you're safe behind cover, as it is not smart or practical exposing yourself while you take the time to place your grenade. Secondly, the grenade targeting system can't seem to angle high enough to get over the cover or wall that you're safely hiding behind. While Rogue is able to throw a grenade thirty yards, he can't seem to toss one over a rock while he's crouching. Come on, for the love of video games, allow us to throw grenades over low obstacles!
Replay:
Rogue Trooper offers players the ability to play alongside a friend in cooperative missions. The missions are entertaining, but only for about 30 minutes at which point you’ve played them all. There are only about 4 different maps to choose from, all pretty small in size. There are two different styles of missions: the first are the point A-to-point-B missions where you progress through the level to reach to the objective point; the second are called stronghold missions, where you are dropped off by an injured friendly and need to fight off any resistance until the times expires. The latter mode I talked about is more challenging and, of course, always different depending on what time limit you configure it for. In terms of story completion, Rogue Trooper is your basic 10 hour action game with not much depth to replay the missions.
Summary:
Rogue Trooper is a very promising buy that is sure to give action/shooter fans the amusement they pay for. While the game isn’t ground breaking with any new technologies, the flexibility of the game play will keep you interested. The cut scenes aren’t bad either, almost makes you feel tied to the story somehow, always wanting to get to the bottom of the betrayal. Although the multiplayer was a bit disappointing, the overall enjoyment was fairly positive. I was pessimistic due to the fact I had moved on to playing the Xbox 360 – thank you Eidos for giving me a reason to still play my Xbox.
